Joseph
K. Bratton, 81, a Lieutenant General who was a former chief of the Army
Corps of Engineers, died of an aneurysm June 2, 2007, at Virginia Hospital
Center.

General Bratton was the top official with the
Corps of Engineers from 1980 until 1984 and oversaw the doubling of military
construction for the Army and Air Force. The Army family housing program
doubled under his command, and he emphasized the corps' contribution to
national preparedness.

At the 100th birthday celebration of the Washington
Monument in 1984, General Bratton praised the 555-foot, 5 1/8 -inch obelisk
as "classic and enduring. In a world that changes very fast," he said,
"it commemorates things that are stable and honorable."

He was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and graduated
third in the Class of 1948 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
He received a master's degree in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in 1959.

General Bratton served in Austria, Korea and
Germany and in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He also worked in the Atomic
Energy Commission's reactor development division and was a military assistant
to the secretary of the Army and to the secretary of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. He was chief of nuclear activities for Supreme Headquarters Allied
Powers Europe from 1972 to 1975 and director of military applications at
the Department of Energy from 1975 to 1979.

At the time, the government was trying to prevent
the Progressive magazine from publishing an article on how a hydrogen bomb
works. The author said he got everything in the article from public sources,
which the government disputed. But when a researcher found a key document
marked "unclassified" in a government library, the case began to fall apart.

General Bratton, who ran the nuclear weapons
program for DOE and was its acting assistant secretary for defense programs,
called the security breach "serious. We have egg on our face."

The erroneous declassification "should have
been caught by the review," he told The Washington Post in 1979. "It's
an embarrassment."

General Bratton, who went on to lead the Corps
of Engineers after that, retired from the military in 1984. His awards
included the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Army Distinguished
Service Medal, three awards of the Legion of Merit and two Bronze Star
Medals.

He went on to become senior vice president
with the Washington office of the Pasadena, California-based Ralph M. Parsons
Corp., an engineering and construction company. In 1995, he and his wife
moved to Melbourne, Fla. He returned to Northern Virginia last year and
lived in McLean.

He enjoyed skiing, running marathons and playing
squash.

His wife of 55 years, Louise Bratton, died
in 2006. A son, John Bratton, died in 1993.
BRATTON, JOSEPH KLTG US ARMYKOREA, VIETNAMDATE OF BIRTH: 04/04/1926DATE OF DEATH: 06/02/2007BURIED AT: SECTION 60 SITE 266ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY